Is a Hard-Boiled Egg the Secret to Eternal Youth?

The Fountain of Youth might lie, improbably, in your refrigerator. In a hard-boiled egg, to be exact. A team of scientists from California and Australia might—underscore might—have unlocked one of life's biggest secrets when they discovered how to unboil an egg. Yes, you read that right. Unboiling is actually possible.

"They figured out how to untangle the proteins that get mixed together when an egg is cooked," explains cosmetic chemist Randy Schueller, a cofounder of thebeautybrains.com. So what's the beauty angle? Imagine if we could do the same with the proteins in our hair and skin. "The ultimate beauty invention would be a protein unscrambler' that would let us control the bend in our hair or even prevent a wrinkle." If this technology does eventually have practical applications in hair or skin care—and that's a big if—according to Schueller, it would most likely be in the area of reversing damage to hair or skin proteins. For example, it could possibly lead to a product that allows us to reconfigure the shape of hair from straight to curly and back to straight again. Makes a flatiron seem almost quaint, doesn't it?

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